I'm not sure exactly what it is – maybe it's my discovery of the new Cirque du Soleil Ka site this afternoon, but something has kicked my imagination into high gear. Here are some of the ideas that have been flickering across my mind tonight:

• Kelele Mbosa is the returned soul of the last of his people, a tribe that was caught and forced into slavery. He welcomed the freedom death would bring, but when his time finally came a sadistic lesser god caught his soul and forced Mbosa to be his servant. Mbosa rebelled and slew the lesser god, and as the deity lay dying its power surged into him, cursing him with an eternal existence halfway between life and death. He now travels the world, heralded by the living and the dead alike with reverence, fear or hatred as Phoenix or Godkiller.
• A demon is freed by a little boy playing with a tiny Asian pot found in a small antique store in upstate New York. Chaos ensues as ghostly temples begin to form out of a dense red mist that engulfs Albany.
• The betrayed man falls to his knees as his wife runs screaming down the jogging path, her head engulfed by a cold green flame – this is the birth of The Ambassador to Hell.
• Gabriel Diavolo is the devil's son, with feathered wings brighter than any tropical bird – his bright orange hair tumbles across his forehead, nearly hiding the fact that he was born without eyes.
• "Daddy," she hissed, "that man over there is a wolf!"
  "Hush, dear, it's not polite to stare."
  "But daddy – it's the same one I saw kill Mommy!"
  His fingers tightened on her cold little hand.
• Every night Murray stood outside in the backyard and watched the sky, waiting for the angels to bring back his dad.